posted 22. February 201120:57
John Landis is a great writer, director and producer and has done many classics.

Here is my top 5. It is hard to order them but I'll try.

1. An American Werewolf in London2. Three Amigos3. Trading Places4. Coming to America5. National Lampoon's Animal House
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posted 23. February 201101:26
Yeah Blues Brothers 2000 sucked. Maybe John Landis was just trying to defend himself but I saw an interview with him and he said he was tricked by whatever studio into doing it.

I agree that he has not done any decent movies lately which is most surprising considering the calibre of movies he is capable of.

IMO he had the potential to be the greatest film maker ever.
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posted 23. February 201106:24
John Landis is one of my favorite directors of all time. Here's my top 5, all IMHO of course:

1. An American Werewolf in London2. Trading Places3. National Lampoon's Animal House4. Coming to America5. The Blues Brothers

Honorable Mention: Thriller (I know, I know, it's not a movie but it is a fantastic music video so I felt it deserved to be mentioned among Landis's best work).
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posted 23. February 201122:33
I just don't get Into The Night. If you like it, all well and good but too me it is severely boring. Enough to turn it off. Not trying to put a damper on things by any means though Posts: 2360 | From: On the point, top of the dune | Registered: Jan 2010 | Site Updates: 12
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posted 03. March 201118:07
Since I love this film, I will give it a go. Jeff Goldblum's character, Ed Okin, is like most of us. He's marking time through life to the point where he just can't sleep because he can't deal with his issues, and he can't move forward. He reluctantly decides to act impulsively, and Michelle Pfeiffer falls on the hood of his car, plunging him into an adventure that will change him. Folks threaten him, pull guns on him, and there is chaos all around him. He's not really afraid, yet he's not a hero. He's just too burned out, apathetic, and tired to care. The viewer completely sympathizes with and cares for him because he is every one of us at some point in our lives. By the end, there is a full character arc, which I won't spoil. And which guy among us wouldn't want to grab Pfeiffer's hand and act spontaneously to protect her? (And I think that this is the only time that she's naked in a film. )

On another level, it succeeds as a film-buff insider movie. It's like an old school noir in plot, yet it is in color and quite differently done. All those film directors show up in cameos that are witty in an ironic way outside the plot--David Cronenberg talking about scanners, for example. Everything exists in a movie-movie universe here.

Finallly, it's just wonderful John-Landis-in-great-form filmmaking--beautiful night time cinematography, perfect editing, cool locations...and an amazingly haunting B.B. King soundtrack, one that I sometimes play as background to my own life as I imagine my own fantasy of saving my own unobtainable, out-of-my-league girl.

posted 03. March 201118:25
It's an easy paced movie about a guy who is almost sleepwalking through an adventure, and he barely even notices it. I used to watch it a lot. It's just a light, amusing movie with some nice performances and scenes. The intro where he finds his wife cheating on him is really good in an understated way.

I'm not so sure it's a movie that can be labeled as 'great'. But I do think it's consistently good.

quote:Originally posted by Crash: And which guy among us wouldn't want to grab Pfeiffer's hand and act spontaneously to protect her? (And I think that this is the only time that she's naked in a film. )

What's not to like?

Yes - it is. And at a time when, for me at least, this very beautiful actress looked as good as she ever has....
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posted 04. March 201105:53
I agree, Paul. I don't think that Michelle Pfeiffer has ever looked better than around the Into the Night/Scarface period. Sometime around "Wolf" in '94, it looked to me like she had some cosmetic surgery done on her face. She still looks good, but I preferred her back in the day.
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posted 04. March 201107:27
Electric Dreams yes, because he basically gets very little real screen time and certainly doesn't "star" in the movie - Miles, Madeleine and Edgar are the stars. Until you reminded me, I really had forgotten that he was even in it.

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